


there's an albatross around your neck

by mutemelody



Series: a study in humanity [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angels Don't Know How To Emotion, Biblical Inaccuracies (Probably), Gen, Internal Conflict, Light Angst, so many headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 10:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18092339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutemelody/pseuds/mutemelody
Summary: “The humans build so high,” Azrael says, ignorant of the distressing thoughts that his mind has conjured. She scrapes her foot across the surface of the building they are perched on as if testing it in some capacity.“Did you know they call these buildings skyscrapers? They ran out of room to build on their world, so they reached upwards and built there.” She looks over the ledge, into the world their brother has chosen to occupy. “They are always doing that.” She muses under her breath.“Building?”“Reaching,” His sister corrects, a smile on her face that is not entirely filled with happiness but not tainted by sadness either. It is much more complicated than either emotion - there's a story there that Michael finds himself longing to know if only to feel such a complex emotion for himself.(That is the first time he feels desire.)





	there's an albatross around your neck

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Weight of Living Part 1" by Bastille.

He had flown away, wings spread and the Silver City set as his destination.

And then, curiously enough, he had  _ paused.  _ Stopped in the path that was already set in front of him.

That is where he is now, hovering between Earth and Heaven while the unfamiliar sensation of  _ hesitation  _ fills him. His wings beat to keep him hovering in one singular place, and there’s nothing standing in his way. Just a bit forward, hardly any real distance at all to a creature such as he, and he will be home once more. 

So...why is he hesitating? He has never done so before. He is the Commander of God’s Army, a Soldier of his Father, the Almighty. Hesitation should not even be possible to one such as him. Hesitation is an emotion not for angels, or archangels, or  _ him.  _ It’s a feeling that comes with those beings that one day stood at his Father’s command and walked out of the mud in order to start a new world. Beings that stood and walked and questioned and  _ felt _ and-

Changed. Changed themselves, to adapt. Changed the landscape, to survive.

Changed Lucifer, and - for some reason unknown to him - his brother had  _ let  _ them do so.

Humanity has changed Lucifer, but that change could not be so powerful that it’s affecting him as well.

Or could it?

He doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. It  _ shouldn’t  _ matter. It is time for him to go home. Back to the Silver City to continue his service. He has duties to do, and Father’s Will to put into motion.

But…

“In or out, Michael.” A familiar voice says, her tone light, and he turns to look at Azrael properly. She is suspended in the air with her arms crossed and a look on her face full of emotions too complex for him to decipher. If Michael did not know the extent that his sister walked amongst humanity, that in itself would be the sign that gave her away.

“Apologies, Sister, I was simply…” He trails off, uncertain. But why is he uncertain? He is to be unwavering. That is who he  _ is.  _ An  _ archangel. The  _ Archangel Michael.

She spins her eyes in an odd manner. And why were her arms in that position, held so close to her chest? She doesn’t seem to be wounded, nor does he believe her to be hiding any weaponry. She has only ever wielded her blade, which has been returned to her side after he took it from Uriel.

“Follow me,” She says simply, and turns to suddenly take flight back towards Earth. Away from the Silver City, from Heaven, from  _ home. _

Michael hesitates once more, the second time he has done so in all of existence.

Azrael has been on Earth the most, more than even Lucifer or Gabriel or any other of their siblings. She is the Angel of Death, which plagues humanity far more than it ever could Heaven, and has done so since their dawn. Unlike the rest of them, her duties are solely among Father’s creations and rarely stray.

She would know what is happening to him. What humanity did to him through his bro- Lucifer. How humanity got him - God’s actions, God’s  _ weapon  _ \- to hesitate.

So, he follows her flight, shifting planes when they get to close to the city he had just departed from. She doesn’t need to, as she utilizes her ability to access a plane only visible to celestials, or to the dead and dying mortals. He traces her path exactly, not straying off in the slightest out of obedience that he has held since his own creation. He lands on the roof of one of the taller human buildings just a few steps behind her.

She retracts her wings with a simple shoulder movement. It has been so long since Michael has done so on Earth, but he flicks back to the mortal plane and does the same. It feels more... _ confining  _ than doing so in Heaven, but also something else that is oddly...not an unfavorable feeling.

“What are we doing here, Sister?” He asks, his voice careful and slightly raised in order to be heard in the middle of all the noise the city below generates. He feels her grace shift as she enters the same plane as him, rendering them both visible to mortal eyes. 

He does not understand why she would do such an action. He could see her just fine before.

“Oh, just come over here.” She says, her voice light as usual with a strain of something entirely new lying within it, and reaches out for his arm. It’s not an attack - he can tell that from her body language the moment she starts to move - so he decides to humor her and let her land her grapple. 

If it turns aggressive, well, Michael isn’t God’s Commander without proper reason.

She moves guides him over towards the edge of the large structure they are on but stops before stepping off. She flashes him a look that he can’t decipher, but there’s a smile on her face so he guesses she’s pleased with something.

He looks at her, wondering what exactly he’s missing. He’s never been the naturally smartest of God’s Angels - that was always Lucifer - but he’s studied enough that he’s far from unintelligent. 

“What is it?” He asks her.

“Look around you, Brother.” She insists, and so he does.

They’re remarkably high up for being perched on a human structure, so the view is decent enough. He lets his eyes trail over the city that two fallen angels (and Mother, but that is not something he wishes to think about at the current moment) occupy. It’s loud like Heaven, but the noise isn’t as graceful or soothing or harmonious as the Silver City.

He wonders if Hell sounds anything similar to this. It is to be the antithesis of Heaven, after all, and the cacophony he hears are far from the eternal melodious music of his home.

_ (Would that not make it silent?  _ He thinks, and them immediately pushes the thought away as he thinks of his bro- Sa-  _ Lucifer  _ spending all those millennia in a domain of silence. He cannot. Lucifer’s music had always been the best to him, the most soothing and pleasant to hear. He cannot bear to imagine that voice suppressed in a world of quiet.)

“The humans build so high,” Azrael says, ignorant of the distressing thoughts that his mind has conjured. She scrapes her foot across the surface of the building they are perched on as if testing it in some capacity. 

“Did you know they call these buildings skyscrapers? They ran out of room to build on their world, so they reached upwards and built there.” She looks over the ledge, into the world their brother has chosen to occupy. “They are always doing that.” She muses under her breath.

“Building?”

“Reaching,” His sister corrects, a smile on her face that is not entirely filled with happiness but not tainted by sadness either. It is much more complicated than either emotion - there's a story there that Michael finds himself longing to know if only to feel such a complex emotion for himself.

(That is the first time he feels desire.)

“They’re always reaching. Always striving to be better, learn more,  _ grow.  _ Disobedience our anathema. Stagnation is theirs.” She explains, and her lips quirk as if she can sense how he is utterly unable to comprehend such a concept. 

“How can they persist in such an unstable fashion?” Michael asks, his mind reeling from the sheer idea.

“It is entirely  _ because  _ of that instability that they thrive on this world.” Azrael says, “They do not follow by instinct. They  _ ask.  _ Instead of being born as leaders or followers, they are made as thinkers.”

She says it so simply as if it is not unlike everything he has ever known.

“How?” He asks in place of the thousands of other questions fluttering through his mind.

She moves her shoulders up and down, but her wings do not come out. At the same time, she lets out a sharp exhale. He thinks the two are connected, but does not recognize the motion, or the emotions it reveals. “That’s the question he’s trying to figure out.”

He didn’t need to ask who the new subject of her sentence was - already he was thinking of his younger brother, the only one of them to reside in Heaven, Hell,  _ and  _ the mortal realm.

And he had chosen the mortal realm.

_ I do not know how to talk to him. _ He wants to confess, but he cannot. It is not in his nature to admit such a fault, such a  _ weakness. _

So he remains silent.

Azrael, however, with a strange perceptiveness that he has never seen from her before - granted, of course, that he has not properly spoken to her before his twin Fell, speaks once more as if he has spoken his thoughts aloud.

“I can’t talk to him.” She says, “I don’t have the time for the length of the talk that we need to have. Besides, every time I try I just think...” She lets out a laugh, but it lacks the happiness and joy one can usually find around the Angel of Death. “It would be  _ really  _ awkward.”

Her words are oddly flat. He can sense that she’s hiding much more complex, intricate emotions behind the familiar ones. 

He cannot blame her. This is an unfamiliar enemy, one that they cannot fight. 

Angels have never had to adapt before. They are the children of God and Goddess, pieces of His and Her Divinity and Power and Glory. They have never had proper enemies - he doesn’t think of Lucifer like that, won’t,  _ can’t  _ \- because no being has ever been able to pose a real threat to them. They are Angels and Archangels, and that is that.

And now there are these... _ emotions.  _ Feelings. Something humanity created all on their own because Father knows that even though Angels and Humans share the same capacity to feel, humans do so  _ vibrantly.  _

They were just weak version of Angels, creatures that only pulled themselves out of the mud with Father’s help, beings that were  _ flightless.  _

All they had was this innate freedom. They didn’t even all have Father.

It’s just...baffling.

_ “Disobedience our anathema. Stagnation is theirs.” _

Azrael’s words made Lucifer sound more human than angel. He had never been like the rest of them, even when they were just fledglings. He had always had this innate disobedience in him that no one could quite understand.

But, everchanging, to despise stagnation, to not revile disobedience but rather have the tendency to question orders…

Had this been what his twin had felt, all those millennia ago? Was this the precipice he had stood on when he chose to question Father? Had he felt the way humanity naturally feels, and that was why he rejected everything angelic?

He had always burned so brightly, but was this what he had burned with? Emotions? Passion?

Desire?

Michael doesn’t know. He can’t know. He’s barely skimmed the surface in experiencing any of those things.

He does not say anything further, letting the strange sounds of humanity wash over him as he questions everything he has ever known. Azrael leaves him eventually, alone and deep in thought on the edge of the rooftop. She does not leave him with a farewell or explanation of her departure, but Michael does not need one. 

She is the Angel of Death, and mortals do not wait for angels to talk before they die.

He stays there, though. Keeps his perch on the roof of the ‘skyscraper’ and allows the cool night air to blow over him.

Perfect breeze for flying, he notes, and his starting position is optimal as well. How could humans build something like this - perfect for takeoff, perfect for  _ flight -  _ and not go insane at the fact that they are naturally grounded?

He simply does not understand. Maybe he never will. He is okay with that.

Or, rather, he  _ would  _ be, if circumstances were different. But he cannot help but think that maybe, since these are the creatures his brother has chosen to break bread with, if he  _ can  _ understand them and these  _ emotions… _

(Not his brother, he reminds himself. Lucifer has renounced those ties with him. He should respect that, no matter how much it makes the odd feeling he holds near his heart intensify.   
  
He’s hurt him, unforgivably so. He cannot blame the fallen angel for wanting any more familial connections to him.)

Well, maybe he’ll eventually be able to understand Lucifer, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, Michael has not been around humans in...a long time
> 
> My tumblr is mutemelody.tumblr.com talk to me there


End file.
